Infectious Disease

Pandemic aftermath: Navigating a new normal in health, education, and social dynamics

Policy

January 25, 2024

Psychological distress. In 2021, 40% of high school students felt sad and hopeless, 20% seriously considered suicide, and 10% attempted it, with suicides among young people hitting their highest rates ever, though they fell in 2022. Since the greatest increase was before 2017, we can’t really blame the pandemic. And some “innovative” approaches for combatting …

Bridging the health care divide: All our actions matter

Matthew Lewis, PhD, MTS, Alexander Mansour, MPH, and Sarah Smithson, MD, MPH

Physician

January 8, 2024

Much has been written on the social divides laid bare and amplified by the COVID-19 pandemic. Thankfully, the more divisive punditry and polemics have receded along with the COVID-19 mandates. And yet, as professionals in health care who have worked in direct patient care and in support of our clinician colleagues, we still see a broad gap separating the culture and worldviews of the people in health care and the …

CMV: the silent epidemic expectant mothers need to know about [PODCAST]

The Podcast by KevinMD

Podcast

January 2, 2024

Subscribe to The Podcast by KevinMD. Catch up on old episodes!

Join Megan Nix, a writer and author of Remedies for Sorrow: An Extraordinary Child, a Secret Kept from Pregnant Women, and a Mother’s Pursuit of the Truth. Megan shares her deeply personal journey and research into congenital …

What should you do if your child is diagnosed with bronchiolitis this cold and flu season?

Olivia Ostrow, MD and Jennifer Young, MD

Conditions

December 26, 2023

The cold and flu season is already causing a surge of viral infections among children in doctors’ offices and emergency rooms. Health care providers are urging parents to brace themselves for what’s expected to be another season of COVID-19, influenza (flu), respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), and other common viruses all circulating at the same time.

In young children, these viruses can cause bronchiolitis – a lung infection which is similar to …

Time to retire quarantine: Why 5-day isolation guidelines are doing more harm than good

Carolyn Boscia, MD

Conditions

December 22, 2023

I’m making morning rounds on the pediatric unit today: First up, 4-year-old twins with a severe asthma flare; next an infant with bronchiolitis on supplemental oxygen; then a dehydrated 3-year-old listless in bed. These children are all hospitalized with viral illness – but none of it is COVID-19. Meanwhile, their sniffling peers fill daycares and classrooms, and my daughter is among them. “Maybe it’s allergies,” I said to myself this …

World AIDS Day 2023: Remember and commit

Toyin M. Falusi, MD

Conditions

December 1, 2023

December 1, 2023, marks the 35th anniversary of World AIDS Day (WAD), first commemorated in 1988. The theme for this year’s celebration is “Remember and commit,” a truly impactful theme because through remembrance, we acknowledge those who have lost their lives and those who have inspired us to get to where we are. We acknowledge the journey we have been on, and through commitment, we commit to a healthier future …

Navigating COVID: Why it still matters

Anu Osinusi, MD, MPH & The Podcast by KevinMD

Podcast

November 28, 2023

This article is sponsored by Gilead Sciences, Inc.

In this special sponsored episode from Gilead, I’m joined by Anu Osinusi, an infectious disease physician and Vice President of Clinical Research for Hepatitis, Respiratory, and Emerging Viruses at Gilead, to discuss navigating COVID-19 today. We look back on the early days of …

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Navigating COVID: Why it still matters

Dependent on the mask my great-grandfather invented

Shan Liu, MD, SD

Physician

November 25, 2023

Decades ago, I missed my college graduation ceremony with President Clinton as the commencement speaker because I had to be elsewhere. I was in Shanghai, celebrating the 80th anniversary of the Chinese Medical Association—an organization founded by my great-grandfather, Wu Lien-teh, who was the first Chinese person to be nominated for a Nobel Prize. My father, his grandson, had immigrated to the U.S. from Beijing, met my mother in Palo …

A life-changing illness started with a popcorn kernel and just-in-case treatment

Carol Raye

Conditions

November 7, 2023

My decade-long struggle began with a tiny piece of popcorn hull stuck under my gum, which led to a visit to the dentist and an antibiotic, prescribed just in case that persistent irritation behind a tooth was an infection. The antibiotic, clindamycin, cleared my gut of healthy microbes to make way for a dangerous outbreak of Clostridioides (formerly Clostridium) difficile, leaving me with severe diarrhea that nearly killed me.

I suffered …

The Djokovic saga: Vaccination policies revisited

Dinesh Arab, MD

Conditions

October 25, 2023

No matter your politics or judgment on the COVID-19 vaccine, we can agree that the visuals of the world’s number one tennis player being detained and treated like a criminal when he went to the Australian Open last year were unsettling, and the Australian government should have better handled his case. To recap, Mr. Djokovic flew to Australia in January 2022 on a vaccine exemption as he had a COVID-19 …

Turning adversity into hope: my path to a career in medicine

Mariam Pervaiz

Conditions

October 23, 2023

I have wanted to work in medicine ever since my eleven-year-old cousin passed out during my uncle’s birthday party. He suddenly fainted when we were supposed to cut the cake. We rushed to the emergency room. Doctors diagnosed him with blood cancer after a couple of months, which was too late for him to survive. That incident sparked my interest in becoming a physician assistant. I put all my efforts …

When mandates fail to protect, science can help

Ken Blaker

Conditions

October 21, 2023

On October 28, 1918, a San Francisco horseshoer named James Wisser urged a street corner crowd to throw away their masks in defiance of a local mask mandate issued a few days before. He was shot twice after resisting a local health inspector’s attempt to force compliance. At that time, most of the medical community believed that cotton gauze masks were useful in slowing infection rates, but dissenting …

Heroes of pandemic control [PODCAST]

The Podcast by KevinMD

Podcast

October 20, 2023

Subscribe to The Podcast by KevinMD. Catch up on old episodes!

Join Nicholas A. Daniels, an internal medicine physician and the author of Outbreaks and Pandemics: The Life of a Disease Detective. In this episode, we delve deep into the crucial role disease detectives play in solving and …

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Heroes of pandemic control [PODCAST]

Exploring HIV care and advocacy [PODCAST]

The Podcast by KevinMD

Podcast

September 29, 2023

Subscribe to The Podcast by KevinMD. Catch up on old episodes!

Join George Kerr, III, a community health advocate. We delve into the complex world of HIV management, especially among aging individuals. George brings his expertise to the table, discussing “U = U,” aging-related challenges, and the vital …

Misinformed claims and the offensiveness of discrediting COVID-19 vaccine development

Angel Garcia Otano, MD

Conditions

September 23, 2023

The development of COVID-19 vaccines has been an extraordinary scientific achievement in the face of a global health crisis. However, an unfortunate consequence has been the emergence of misinformed claims by non-medical individuals who assert that these vaccines were not appropriately vetted for human use. This essay aims to highlight the fatigue and offensiveness caused by such assertions, considering the extensive research, rigorous testing, and regulatory oversight involved in the …

Lessons taught by Bell’s palsy

Alexander Rakowsky, MD

Conditions

September 19, 2023

Recently, after a week of a viral illness that I most likely picked up from one of my patients as a pediatrician, I noticed that one side of my tongue felt as though I had dental anesthesia. During the day, this slowly progressed, but as night came, the progression rapidly intensified with my lips and eyelids on this same side now drooping. While I suspected Bell’s palsy, considering that I’m …

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Lessons taught by Bell’s palsy

Biological weapons: a history and emerging risks

Ketan Desai, MD, PhD

Conditions

September 1, 2023

Biological weapons are not new. Their use by armies has taken place for centuries. Take the Plague, for example. The pandemic was reportedly first introduced to Europe during the siege of the Genoese trading port of Kaffa in Crimea by the Golden Horde army of Jani Beg in 1347. It decimated 30 percent of the European population. Paradoxically, the resultant labor shortage and lack of faith in the prevailing order …

Balancing health care worker immunization and patient safety

M. Bennet Broner, PhD

Conditions

August 30, 2023

Recently, I heard a news report regarding several states’ attorneys general suing the federal government to eliminate the requirement that health care providers be immunized against COVID. They argued that as fully immunized individuals still contract COVID, and that allowing unimmunized people to be rehired would relieve provider shortages, the regulation was unhelpful.

Initially, I agreed that rehiring these individuals would generate some relief for those staff members who have worked …

A memorable day during COVID: Staying true to my calling

Lee Scheinbart, MD

Physician

August 16, 2023

COVID reminded me of why I became a doctor. Below is an unpublished account (in short story form) of my most memorable day during the height of COVID. It is a reminder that we can remain true to our intrinsic motivators rather than victims of extrinsic factors. And most of us still have the opportunity to choose every day which forces rule our day: intrinsic or extrinsic.

On a Tuesday morning …

How dementia and COVID-19 robbed the baby doll of love

Robert Killeen, MD

Conditions

August 1, 2023

When I started visiting patients in nursing homes, a good many of them had some degree of dementia. In its earliest form, a person with dementia could recall what they were doing when they found out about 9/11, or when Kennedy was shot, or when Pearl Harbor was bombed in the Second World War. However, they couldn’t recall their most recent …

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